Cristina, please know how very, very deeply we share your loss of Penny. She will always be 'my Penny Lynn,' my best friend and roomie from USC. We both went back to get those Ph.D.'s at about the same time in our lives, both at the insistence of our families, and we shared a bond that could not be frayed or broken no matter how many times the Marine Corps moved my husband Chuck and me nor how far away.

When I found out last night that she had lost her fight with cancer, I spent half the night trying to find where I have archived the Southern Cal albums - too many moves, too much archived! I did find this one photo from our USC senior year days together. It was taken in February 1964 at the apartment complex just of the campus in LA where Penny Lynn, Norvene Foster (now Vest), and I lived in a roomy one-bedroom second-floor apartment (designed by a woman architect specifically with the needs of women student renters in mind: TWO bathrooms, lots of closet space, a relatively HUGE bedroom that suited the three of us to a 't,' an eat-in kitchen, and a roomy, comfy living room with studio sofa-style beds. Oh, the stories I could tell!

In this picture, Penny Lynn is barbecuing on the balcony outside our corner apartment...no longer remember what, but even then she was a fantastic cook!

I do have a few more recent photos I will send - and I will continue to search for a key photo album. Even if I don't find that album in time for you to consider for use on Thursday, I'll send the photos so that the family can have more pictures of our precious Penny when she and I were young together.

I FB-talked with Maren last night. Please share with all the family our great sorrow at your loss. Chuck and I wish that we could be there for Thursday's memorial service, but that not being possible, we WILL join you in absentia during the service in prayers for her - and Penny Lynn accepted our Episcopal prayers with a huge grin!

With love and prayers,
Carole Lynn Beat Geiger